This invention relates to crushing and compacting devices, and more particularly to devices for crushing disposable metal cans.
Many jurisdictions have enacted regulations to encourage the recycling of disposable containers such as plastic bottles and metal cans. In those jurisdictions, the stores are sometimes compelled to collect both reusable and disposable containers to be reprocessed in an environmentally safe manner. Most beer and soft drink cans are now made of recyclable aluminum. Efficient handling of empty aluminum cans requires that they be crushed and compacted before storage and transportation to a melting plant.
There is, therefore, a need for a lightweight, compact, yet efficient can crushing device which could be used at the collecting site of recyclable beverage containers and safely operated by store managers.
Most apparatuses for crushing cans such as the one disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,862,796 Lodovico et al. are of an industrial type with a size and capacity which limits their use at recycling centers and melting plants. Smaller crushing apparatuses such as the type disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,749,004 Pagdin et al. retain an imposing size and considerable complexity. They are based on the same principle as the Lodovico design, that is, they rely on a succession of crushing or shredding roller pairs through which the cans are gravity-driven from a feeding hopper on top of the apparatus, down to a chute beneath the last set of rollers. This type of apparatus is prone to jamming when crushed material accumulates between two pairs of rollers. Accordingly, they must have complex anti-jamming mechanisms as well as means for separating the roller pairs so that the operators can remove the clogging material. This type of apparatus cannot efficiently be used on the premises of a retail store which usually does not have available the lifting equipment necessary to drop the cans in the hopper, nor the belt carrying or other loading equipment necessary to collect the crushed cans from underneath the apparatus and load them into crates or into the bed of a truck.